Deming said it and the Bible reports that Jesus said it, too, although in different terms. W.E. Deming was the surprising person who moved from the US Census Bureau, that organization charged with counting the Americans and many subsets of them, to being a manufacturing and executive guru. You probably know more about Jesus than I do so I’ll just skip to the idea they both promoted: forgiveness, sympathy and understanding.
Jesus (Luke 23:34) “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do”
Deming: “94% of human errors are a result of the design of the system”. [ These might not seem to be saying the same thing but in a sense they definitely are.]
Both of these principles urge us to find a way to understand others’ actions. Sometimes, a profit motive is at work but there are many other motives for human action, working singly or in combination. We may not agree with the actions or approve of them. We may feel they are quite good ones. Whatever, it can help to improve our thinking and our lives if we can understand them, see why those actors thought those actions were called for.
Recently, the NSA (National Security Agency) was revealed by Edwin Snowden to have been collecting all sorts of data from major technical companies such as Google, Apple, Yahoo and Facebook. Here is a link to an article written by Steven Levy in Wired magazine about the activity and it seems well-balanced and fair-minded to all concerned.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
